For the longest time, the FoxNews website seemed pretty normal on climate change, all things considered. While Fox TV centered hatemongers like Tucker Carlson and the website reflects that with ample coverage of what was on TV, the original content produced for the website was generally indistinguishable from any other lazy political "news" that quotes who said what. The site was clearly biased in every conceivable way (choice of stories to cover, who to quote, how to frame stories, etc) but wasn’t necessarily going out of the way to spread climate disinformation.
That appears to be changing.
Fox News dot com has, in the last month or so, hired two conservative propagandists in journalist disguises, Thomas Catenacci, formerly an energy reporter at the Koch-sponsored Daily Caller, and Haris Alic, formerly of the cult-founded and $1bilion+ sponsored Washington Times where he turned fossil fool press releases into "news”. Before that, he was at white supremacy-laundering Breitbart, and before that, the billionaire-backed Free Beacon.
Back on June 21st, Thomas Catenacci published his first Fox piece attacking Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for calling on Biden to pause the federal gas tax, "just months after declining to pause her own state's gas tax." (Maybe something changed in the months between?)
Since then, he's published one Dem hit piece after another, real hard-hitting stuff like "Kamala Harris' office posts video of VP sinking basketball shot, leaves out her first 5 misses."
He also covered the climate activists slashing SUV tires in NYC (twice), and somehow suckered a Sierra Club spokesperson into feeding him quotes for a piece about how environmentalists are "pushing extreme measures amid global energy crisis," like investing in clean energy sources not controlled by Russia, which is apparently extreme.
This week, Catenacci helped propagate the lie that protests in the Netherlands and the uprising in Sri Lanka are driven by anti-climate policy sentiments, and yesterday he brought the Daily Caller's trick of "reporting" on a climate advocate's airline emissions to Fox with a piece about John Kerry's family's private jet emissions (quoting, of course, a professional denier).
Meanwhile, on July 8th Haris Alic published his first Fox story, advancing the Koch network's organized anti-ESG disinformation with "news" that Sen. Steve Daines (R., Mont.) introduced a go-no-where bill to "block Biden from adding 'woke' requirements to US retirement plans." Then he did a puff piece about Republican Gov. Youngkin's "speculation of 2024 presidential run," followed by a piece about how Nancy Pelosi went on "lavish Italian vacation as inflation back home hits 40-year high."
You know, Fair And Balanced.
This week, Alic is gassing up former ALEC chair Joe Manchin with an entirely credulous story headlined "Manchin denies he opposes Democratic spending bill, says he'll wait until August to decide." No surprise, when it comes to the fossil fuel loving Democrat, Fox News has no problem taking him at his word and including zero skeptical quotes pushing back on his claims!
How do you follow "reporting" that is shamelessly tongue-on-boot? With a story about conservative ads, of course, turning your compatriot's paid media spend into some free earned media about how (industry front) groups have paid for a "deluge of conservative ads [to] urge Manchin to stand up to Democrats."
Not exactly breaking news that Fox is backing fossil fuels over a livable climate, but the fact that its website just hired not one but two up-and-coming climate disinfo spreaders suggests Fox is only ramping up the lies as the midterm election season heats up.
